Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

For a while she'd felt angry with Tom, as if somehow he'd invaded their lives. She'd been curt with him the next day.

'I hear Grace told you all about the accident?'

'Yes, she did,' he said, almost matter-of-fact. And that was all. It was clear he saw it as something between him and Grace and, when Annie got over her anger, she respected him for this and remembered that it wasn't he who'd invaded their lives but the other way around.

Tom rarely spoke to her about Grace and when he did it was about things that were safe and factual. But Annie knew he saw how it was between them, for who could not?

The calves huddled at the far end of the muddy corral, trying to hide behind each other and using their wet black noses to push each other forward. When one of them got shunted to the front you could see panic set in and when it got too much he'd break around to the back and the whole thing would start over again.

It was the Saturday morning before Memorial Day and the twins were showing Joe and Grace how good they'd gotten at roping. Scott, whose turn it was, had on a pair of brand-new chaps and a hat that was a size too big for him. He'd already knocked it off a couple of times swinging the loop. Each time Joe and Craig had whooped with laughter and Scott had got red and done his best to look as if he found it funny too. He'd been swinging the rope in the air so long that Grace was getting dizzy watching.

'Shall we come back next week?' Joe said.

'I'm picking, okay?'

They're over there. Black, with four legs and a tail?'

'Okay, smartass.'

'Well, jeez, just throw the damn thing.'

'Okay! Okay!'

Joe shook his head and gave Grace a grin. They were sitting side by side on the top rail and Grace still felt proud of herself for having climbed up there. She did it like it was nothing and though it hurt like hell where the bar now pressed into her stump she wasn't going to budge.

She had on a new pair of Wranglers she and Diane had spent a long time finding in Great Falls and she knew they looked good because she'd spent half an hour in front of the bathroom mirror this morning checking them out. Thanks to Terri, the muscles in her right butt filled them out well. It was funny, back in New York she wouldn't have been seen dead in anything other than Levi's, but out here everyone wore Wranglers. The guy in the store said it was because the seams on the inside leg were more comfy for riding.

'I'm better'n you are anyway,' Scott said.

'You sure swing a bigger loop.'

Joe jumped down into the corral and walked across the mud toward the calves.

'Joe! Get out the way, will ya?'

'Don't pee your pants. I'm gonna make it easier for you, break 'em up some.'

As he got nearer, the calves moved off till they were bunched in the corner. Their only escape now was to make a break and Grace could see the worry grow among them till it was set to erupt. Joe stopped. One more step and they'd go.

'Ready?' he called.

Scott bit on his bottom lip and swung the loop a little quicker so it made a whirring noise in the air. He nodded and Joe stepped forward. Right away the calves broke for the other corner. Scott gave a little unintended cry of effort as he threw it. The rope snaked through the air and landed with its loop clean over the head of the leading calf.

'Yeah!' he yelled and yanked it tight.

But the triumph lasted only a second, for as soon as the calf felt the loop tighten he was away and Scott went with him. He left his hat hanging in the air and slapped headfirst onto the mud like a diver in a swimming race.

'Let go! Let it go!' Joe kept hollering, but maybe Scott didn't hear or maybe his pride didn't let him because he hung on to the rope as if his hands were glued to it and off he went. What the calf lacked in size he made up for in spirit and he jumped and bucked and kicked like a steer in a rodeo show, sledging the boy behind him through the mud.

Grace put her hands to her face in alarm and nearly toppled back off the rail. But once they could see Scott was only hanging in there because he wanted to, Joe and Craig started to whoop and laugh. And still he didn't let go. The calf took him from one end of the corral to the other and back again while the other calves stood bemused.

The noise brought Diane running from the house but Tom and Frank, from the barn, beat her to it. They got to the rail beside Grace just as Scott let go.

He lay quite still, face down in the mud and everyone went quiet. Oh no, Grace thought, oh no. At the same moment Diane arrived and gave a frightened cry.

One hand slowly lifted itself from the mud, in a kind of comical salute. Then, theatrically, the boy lifted himself up and turned to face them, standing before them in the middle of the corral to let them have their laugh. And so they did. And when Grace saw Scott's teeth show white in an otherwise perfect coat of brown, she joined in. And together they laughed loud and long and Grace felt part of them and that life perhaps might yet be good.

A half-hour later everyone had dispersed. Diane had taken Scott back into the house to clean up and Frank, who wanted Tom's opinion on a calf he was worried about, had driven him and Craig up to the meadow. Annie had gone down to Great Falls to buy food for what she insisted on calling, to Grace's embarrassment,'the dinner party' to which she'd invited the Booker family that evening. So now it was just the two of them, Grace and Joe, and it was Joe who suggested they go down to see Pilgrim.

Pilgrim now had a corral to himself next to the colts Tom was starting and whose interest, over the double fence, he returned with a mix of suspicion and disdain. He saw Grace and Joe from a long way off and started snorting and nickering and trotting up and down the neurotic, muddy track he'd churned along the far side of the corral.

The rutted grass made walking a little tricky but Grace concentrated on swinging her leg through and although she knew Joe walked more slowly than he normally would, it didn't worry her. She felt as easy with him as she did with Tom. They reached the gate to Pilgrim's corral and leaned there to watch him.

'He was such a beautiful horse,' she said.

'He still is.'

Grace nodded. She told him about that day, almost a year ago, when they went down to Kentucky. And while she spoke, across the corral, Pilgrim seemed to be acting out some perverse parody of the events she described. He paced the rail in a mocking strut with his tail held high, but it was matted and twitched and was angled, Grace knew, by fear not pride.

Joe listened and she saw in his eyes the same contained calm that was in Tom's. It was startling sometimes how like his uncle he was, both in looks and manner. That easy smile and the way he took off his hat and pushed back his hair. Now and again Grace had caught herself wishing he was just a year or two older - not that he'd be interested in her, of course. Not in that way, not now, what with her leg. Anyway, it was fine as it was, just being friends.

She had learned a lot from watching Joe handle the younger horses, especially Bronty's foal. He never forced himself on them but instead let them come and offer themselves and then he would accept them with an ease that Grace could see made them feel both welcome and secure. He'd play with them, but if they ever got unsure he'd back off and leave them be.

'Tom says you gotta give them direction,' he'd told her one day when they were with the foal. 'But push too hard and they get real squirmy. You gotta let them kind of fill in. Tom says it's all about self-preservation.'

Pilgrim had stopped and stood watching them from as far away as he could get.

'So, you gonna ride him?' Joe said. Grace turned to him and frowned.